A Birthday Wish
by MassHysteric
Summary: Young Cadrina Ellen Shepard just turned ten years old today. This should be one of the happiest days of her life…


A Birthday Wish

This story takes place about twenty years before the events of the _Mass Effect_ storyline on the salarian world of Ergiel, where Dylan Shepard is stationed with his daughter Cadrina. It is set a couple of months prior to the stories _First Contact_ and _Memories of Bysorrn_.

_Young Cadrina Ellen Shepard just turned ten years old today. This should be one of the happiest days of her life…_

APRIL 11TH, 2164  
>CHEZAAN CITY GENERAL HOSPITAL<br>PLANET ERGIEL

The emergency admittance room was quiet this particular evening, the only noises were from the periodic pages over the loudspeakers and the vid screen in the waiting area showing an old volus comedic program. Two occupied seats had a salarian with a compression cushion over a broken arm and, on another row, a turian clutching a plastic bag that appeared queasy and ready to vomit at any moment. An orange-white salarian nurse was at the reception desk reading a novel on her datapad, glancing up at her console screen every minute or so to check for any status updates as well as for the local time. It was nearing nineteen-thirty hours, Citadel Standard Time. Her shift was about to end and there was a favor to perform for a new friend of hers.

The double doors of the emergency admittance room parted and two humans rushed in hunched over, holding their jacket collars over their heads. Outside it had begun to rain hard and the soft yellow lit streets outside brightened at moments with each stroke of lightning. The doors sealed up again, shutting out the weather and tumult. As the humans approached the reception desk they released their collars and stood upright. The nurse perked up and called out as she recognized the bearded human as a co-worker: Systems Alliance Captain Dylan Shepard, posted to the hospital to serve as a med tech and to receive training in exo-medicine. The other was his daughter Cadrina, whom the nurse had only seen holos of until now. The nurse went over to a nearby supply closet and brought out two towels for them.

"Thanks… just beat the rain… by that much…!" Dylan panted as he dried himself and set his towel down on the reception desk. Cadrina handed her towel back to the nurse after she finished and nodded her thanks. Dylan and the nurse whispered something unintelligible to each other and then turned their attention to the young girl.

He introduced the salarian nurse "Cadrina… this is my friend Meina."

Meina offered Cadrina her hand. "Cadrina! It is an honor to finally meet you in person!"

Cadrina's expression winced as she shook Meina's hand. The nurse was unsure of what to make of this. "It's nice to meet you…" Cadrina replied quietly with a weak smile.

"Is something wrong, Cadrina?" Meina asked.

Cadrina blinked and shuddered, chuckling "Oh… nothing, nothing… it's just been a long day, you know?" and forced a wider smile as she released Meina's hand.

Dylan took notice of Cadrina's reaction and was a bit concerned, but remembered what he had come to the hospital for. "Honey, I'll try to be as quick as I can," he told Cadrina "Just wait down here with Meina, okay?"

"All right, Dad…"

Dylan glanced quickly at Meina, who nodded in understanding as he strode off towards the elevators. Meina walked Cadrina into a vacant examination room where she could wait for her father and prompted her to remove her jacket and make herself a bit more comfortable on one of the chairs inside. Cadrina draped her jacket over a chair facing the entrance to the room and sat down with hands folded on her lap. She wore a white blouse with sleeves opened along their outer edges, a silver metal band hung just above each elbow preventing the sleeves from going open completely. The collar of her blouse was opened to the base of her neck, accented by a black choker with a simulated diamond oval jewel at its center. Completing Cadrina's outfit were black dress pants with matching boots concealed by the hem. Cadrina had also made a small ponytail hanging down back in the midst of her shoulder length blond hair and had on a touch of lip gloss and tiny gold dot earrings.

"You look very lovely, Cadrina!" Meina complimented "Very sophisticated! Is today a special occasion?"

"It's my birthday today…. my dad's taking me to dinner, but there was something he forgot to take care of here, so we stopped over on the way."

"Congratulations, dear! That is so kind of him! I am sure he will finish quickly," assured Meina and motioned to the door "Now, I need to return to my desk. Will you be all right in here by yourself?"

Cadrina nodded and the salarian nurse then quickly left the room, sealing the door behind her. Cadrina looked around her and tried to relax a little. There was a padded bed across from her still unfolded from the wall. One cabinet door by the bed was ajar and the bright labels of some of the containers inside could be seen. Earlier, she was at a transcom center communicating with her mother Hannah, who was currently out on patrol in the nearby Tannis Cluster. Hannah and her husband called in a favor or two to set up the session so she could wish her daughter a happy birthday in real time. Cadrina promised both her parents that she would try to enjoy today in spite of what had happened recently.

As Cadrina began to lose herself in thought, the lights in the room suddenly cut out. The examination room door snapped open and four people huddled around a cake covered in chocolate frosting, vanilla trim, with ten lit yellow glowsticks slowly shuffled in, singing a bit out of harmony:

"_Happy Birth-day to youuu, Happy Birth-day to youuuu! Happy Birth-day, Ca-driiiinaaaa! Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuu_!"

Dylan and Meina, along with a turian orderly and a volus who worked in the supply section, had planned this surprise over several days. Meina was also an accomplished cook and she welcomed the challenge of making her first human pastry for her friend's child. The turian and volus teased each other over not being able to carry a simple tune as they helped set down the cake on a cart Dylan wheeled over before Cadrina. Chocolate ambrosia wafted through the air and Cadrina took it in with a smile. Something else also hung in the air. A familiar scent had returned, one she detected when she first met Meina…

"Happy Birthday, Cady!" congratulated Dylan "Don't worry, we're still on for dinner – hope you don't mind having dessert first!"

Cadrina's smile faded as she sniffed the air more. It was perfume - a mix of roses and a twinge of sea air. Only one other person she knew used that exact perfume, and she was no longer living…

"Let's cut the cake, already!" wheezed the volus, taking up a knife.

"Hey, the kid's supposed to do that!" said the turian as he took the knife away.

"Precisely, Arel!" agreed Meina "I thoroughly researched this ritual! After the decorated pastry is presented and the celebratory song is sung, the person of honor must make a wish before extinguishing the candles with their breath and cutting the cake!"

Cadrina remembered that this person was to have participated in today's real time call as well. She said she that would not have missed Cadrina's tenth birthday for the world…

The salarian nurse leaned over. "So what do you wish for, Cadrina?"

There was no mistaking the perfume Meina wore now. Why that scent, of all the ones she could have chosen?

Cadrina's breath caught and her sniffling became more audible. Dylan knelt down, taking her hand and asking what was wrong. The volus waddled towards the light switch and tripped it. The soft yellow light from the glowsticks on the cake gave way to bright white as everyone gathered around a grief stricken young girl.

Cadrina's eyes were squeezed shut. "…I wish my grandma was still aliiive…" her voice broke as her face crumpled.

More tears than Cadrina could wipe away began to flow. She hid her face in her hands, feeling sadness over losing her grandmother and shame for breaking her promise to her parents, ruining the surprise party.

"…I'm sorry…" she sobbed "… her perfume… it's her perfume…"

Dylan's heart sank. Only now did he recognize the scent, having been distracted by preparations for Cadrina's birthday "Oh my god - it never even occurred to me!"

Meina sniffed her wrist "Forgive me, Cadrina… I did not know…" She began to choke up; she never meant any harm to the child. Meina had taken quite a liking to human foods and products over the past few years. It was only unfortunate coincidence that Meina and Cadrina's grandmother liked the same perfume.

Dylan took Meina's hand "The fault was mine, Meina. I should have remembered…" He addressed all of his friends "… I need a few minutes alone… please…"

"We understand, Dylan," forgave Arel "C'mon, guys…"

The orderly led Meina and the volus outside while Dylan remained to console his daughter. Meina settled down but still felt badly.

"Something was bothering her earlier," said Meina as the door closed "If I had only known about this perfume…" Meina absently rubbed her wrists and neck trying to remove the scent.

"Cadrina and her grandmother must have been very close," the volus observed "I hope she passed away quietly and peacefully, at least…"

Arel leaned on the wall near the door and crossed his arms, eyes to the floor. The volus looked to Menia and shrugged. Menia took a breath.

"…her grandmother was Olivia Consley, Bront…"

Bront gasped and staggered momentarily, his respirator taking a good second to recalibrate. "The human diplomat that was poisoned a few weeks ago?"

"Yeah, by a pro-human activist," the turian continued "He claimed she was 'selling out her species,' the bastard. Cadrina was there in the hospital with her parents when Olivia died. She was also at the Alliance courthouse when they brought in the killer – I remember the news vid. She looked him right in the eyes and told him she never wanted to see him again."

Bront's head hung low " The poor child…"

"Then the human made a disgusting comment right to her face," Meina finished "Something about spending time in the real world to make her less self-righteous. Well, our friend Dylan stepped in and rendered him unconscious with one blow! He spent a few days in confinement himself for that – he did not mind. He said that he needed to show his daughter that we all need to be held accountable for our actions, no matter what…"

The group of friends waited outside the examination room silently as it dawned on them that once again Dylan Shepard was being called to task…

After a minute of gentle persuasion, Dylan was able to sit down in Cadrina's chair with her sitting atop his lap. He held her head to his chest and rocked her as she cried, cursing himself for neglecting to tell Meina about her perfume.

"Cady, I am… so… sorry…" he whispered, trying to keep his own emotions in check "I was so caught up with trying to make this day special for you I… I just forgot…"

"Don't be sorry, Dad," Cadrina mewled "I messed up… I promised you and Mom I'd try to be happy today… especially today…"

Dylan kissed the top of Cadrina's head and hugged her closer.

"It's not right!" she sniffled "…Grandma never wanted to hurt anybody. She just wanted everybody to work and live together… what's so wrong with that?"

Dylan tried to answer as best as he could "Some people… don't know any other way to live… or can't accept any one else other than themselves. They don't want to change… and so they act out of fear. Fear that they'll be left out… or that what they believed in their whole lives was wrong…"

Cadrina gripped a leg on her pants making a tight fist and then pounded on her leg.

"I just feel so MAD…!" she fumed into Dylan's chest "Why did he have to kill her…? Why couldn't you just-"

"Cadrina, I know you don't really mean that," Dylan interrupted calmly, stroking Cadrina's hair "Killing him wouldn't make me or us any better. All that anger left over from the war was exactly what your grandmother wanted to stop."

"…it just hurts so much…"

"I know, Honey… he hurt all of us. You have every right to be upset but you can't dwell on it, not forever. It'll just twist inside you, make you angrier and sick. You have to remember the good. They caught him… and now he'll spend the rest of his life in prison. A lot of people supported your grandmother, including the turians she was reaching out to. They're going to continue what she started…"

Cadrina seemed to be easing a little.

"…and we got to say goodbye to her," Dylan reminded her of the last hours they spent with Olivia "You got to tell her that you loved her… she told you she was so proud of you… and that she knew in her heart that you were going to grow up to be a kind, beautiful and amazing woman…"

Cadrina looked up at her father "How do you and Mom do it, Dad…? How do you keep from crying or being scared, when people are dying around you?"

"Some people can just turn those emotions off… but that's dangerous, "explained Dylan as he wiped away a few more of her tears "If you keep everything bottled inside, one day you'll just explode when you don't mean to. I still have the same feelings whether I'm on a rescue mission or not and even back when I was a soldier. What I do… if I really need to cry… or scream and punch something… or even laugh at times I shouldn't, I promise myself that I'll find a little time, a little moment for myself to breathe and let some or all of it out, depending on how much time I can find… and I make sure I find the time."

"Mom only cried a little… but it was just us; there weren't any officers there with us…"

"She was just trying to be strong for you… she did cry more later on…"

Dylan hated lying, but he did not want to worry Cadrina. Hannah in fact did only shed those few tears and then soon after the funeral resumed her duties. Olivia Consley was everything to her, but she did not want to appear weak or fully accept that she was gone, killed for what she believed in. Dylan tried talking to her but she kept putting the matter aside, saying that it was bound to happen due to the nature of her mother's work to build relations with the turians after the First Contact War and that she would want her daughter to persevere. He feared that one day Hannah's brave façade would come crashing down and take her with it.

Cadrina began to slip again "…I hope Grandma's in Heaven, now… there is a Heaven, right Dad…? You're not saying that just to make me feel better?"

"Of course Grandma's in Heaven," Dylan reassured "Why would you think she wasn't?"

"Some people asked Council scientists… they're supposed to be more advanced than us… they say it doesn't exist… that your brain just shuts down and that's it!"

Dylan cupped one of Cadrina's cheeks "Cady, people have been trying to prove the existence or non-existence of Heaven since the beginning. The Council races are ahead of us in a few things, but they have about as much a clue as we do for what happens after we die. They say that when people come back from near death, that those visions of the afterlife were just hallucinations or wild dreams… I really don't think so. Even people that didn't believe, great people of learning that came back, they think… they be-lieve Heaven exists. All that time to learn and experience life and then just let it all go when you die? It… doesn't sound right…"

Cadrina took great solace in her father's belief in the afterlife "…maybe souls are like balls of energy" she speculated "Or maybe they're like AI programs!"

"AI programs?" Dylan chuckled "I've never heard that one before!"

Cadrina was an avid coder, working on extranet games and programs with her friends. Hannah joked about having regrets for showing Cadrina how, fearing she might use her abilities to score ill gotten gains from vending machines. Cadrina began to relax again as she elaborated on her theory:

"Maybe God or the Creator is, like, the greatest coder ever, writing these AI programs we call souls. If these programs – people, animals - do a lot of good in life, when they die they're saved and maybe even get used again, born again. If they're bad… well… they might get rewritten, or if they really stink they just may get erased!"

Dylan smiled "Your grandmother was definitely a good program… one of the best ever written!"

A hope began to swell within Cadrina "Maybe Heaven is just like a giant mainframe. Maybe there's even a way to access it without dying…"

"Careful, Cady! You know what your mother says about only using your powers for good," teased her father about her coding abilities.

"It's not to crash it or rewrite it, Dad… I just want to find Grandma, that's all. I wanna know that she's okay; maybe my hedgehog Murrie's with her… If Heaven is a big computer, and I can prove it… no one has to be afraid to die anymore. Except the bad programs, of course, but they can change and try to do better… and maybe get a second chance!"

Cadrina sat up straight on Dylan's lap as he marveled at her. "That's the best explanation of Heaven I've ever heard" and added "But one thing bothers me, though… nobody has any wings there? No white robes or little halos written for anybody?"

"…customization options, Dad!" Cadrina laughed, Dylan joining her. He wrapped his arms about her torso.

"Feel better now, Honey?" he asked.

"A little better," she said. "I didn't wanna ruin your surprise party. Everyone must've gone out of their way…"

Dylan clasped and shook his daughter's shoulder. "Let's fix that!"

Cadrina allowed him to rise from the chair and head for the door. Cadrina took her seat again, straightened up her hair and collar and moved the cart with her birthday cake back in front of her as Dylan's friends reentered and gathered around. The glowsticks on the cake were still lit up and all waited expectantly for Cadrina. She smiled up at them.

In her mind, she revised her wish to a hope of reuniting with her grandmother as she described. In school lessons, she was shown how human history was dotted with moments of great achievement, where ideas once thought impossible were realized: harnessing fire, human flight, splitting the atom, space travel and discovering intelligent life on other worlds.

Finding Heaven would be no different…

"Thank you, everybody" she said and then leaned over, blowing on the glowsticks whose light faded as her breath flowed past. Dylan and company applauded and cheered, then brought out plates, napkins and utensils to pass around as Cadrina removed the glowsticks and cut out a slice of cake. Meina handed over the plate Cadrina laid the slice upon.

"The person of honor gets the first piece and the first taste – that is the tradition!" the nurse reminded her.

Cadrina took her plate, cut away a small bite of cake with her fork and put it in her mouth. She chewed slowly, making sure to sample every bit of flavor. Meina anxiously watched as Cadrina swallowed the first piece of cake. Cadrina looked at Meina and spoke.

"You made this?" Cadrina pointed her fork to her slice. Meina nodded.

"…it's really good!" Cadrina stood up and walked over to Meina, embracing her.

"That's great!" commented Arel "And all I can do is lick the frosting!"

"Oh well, more for me, then!" said Bront, helping himself to a piece of cake.

"I made a special dextro-based version for you, Arel," noted Meina "Bront, you make sure everyone else is served first before you gorge yourself!"

Bront groaned and followed the salarian's directive. Meina looked down to Cadrina who was still wrapped around her waist. She laid a hand upon her head.

"Happy Tenth Birthday, Cadrina."

The young girl released Meina and went over to Bront and Arel for a quick hug, Arel playfully mussing her hair. She then sat down again to finish her cake as her father and the volus began on their slices. Meina left the examination room briefly to retrieve Arel's dextro-cake from the pantry freezer.

END

Author's Notes and Thoughts:

- Dylan Shepard is based on actor William Hurt

- Suggested background music for this story: _Sweet Escape_ by Paul Cardall


End file.
